Research communication is a design problem

This year, with fellow fifth-year students at the Faculty of Medicine, Suez University, I worked on a pre-post study of how one energy drink affects vital signs and cognitive performance in 47 adults. We presented it at the faculty’s 4th Annual Student Symposium for Research Projects on 9 June 2026. Besides being one of the researchers, I planned and designed the presentation, the official poster and the study’s website, and I co-presented it.

Doing all three taught me that research communication is a design problem, and that most of its failures are design failures.

#One study, three formats, one system

A poster is read from two metres away in ninety seconds. A presentation is followed in real time by a room. A website is read alone, at any pace, on any device, months later. Each format has different constraints, but the audience should recognise the same study in all three.

So the three shared one visual system: the same grid, colours, chart style and section numbering, so that someone who saw the poster in the corridor could recognise the slides in the hall, and later the website on their phone.

#Charts need a table behind them

Charts are the heart of a results section and the least accessible part of it. On the website, every chart can be switched to a “View as table” alternative with the exact numbers. Screen-reader users get the data, and careful readers can check the values instead of estimating from bar heights.

#Context before numbers

“Heart rate increased” means little without baseline, direction, size and time. Each result on the site states what was measured, when, and compared with what, before showing the number. It is slower to write and much faster to understand.

#Make the line between findings and advice obvious

Health topics attract readers looking for advice. The site states clearly that it is research communication, not medical advice, and the conclusions are worded with the caution the design of the study deserves. Good design includes saying what the study does not show.

#Make it easy to cite and to present

The site has a copyable citation, the official poster as a download, DOI-linked further reading and a presentation mode, so the same content could be shown at the symposium without a separate slide file to keep in sync. A short quiz at the end turns passive reading into a moment of reflection.

#Numbered sections, like slides

The page is organised into numbered sections from abstract to conclusion, with scroll navigation. It reads like a well-paced talk: one idea per section, one main visual per idea.

#What I would tell other students

• Design the poster, the slides and the site together, not one after the other.
• Give every chart a table.
• Write each result as a sentence before you draw it.
• Put the limitations where people will actually see them.
• Publish the work somewhere it can be found and cited after the symposium ends.

Medicine produces a lot of careful work that ends up on a corridor wall for one afternoon. A little design effort lets it keep being useful long after.